He was too silent, an air of grief surrounding him as he slowly laid his cheek against her stomach. And Jaci felt the first tear fall. She didn’t know what she had lost tonight, and she was suddenly terrified to ask, to let herself wonder.
“Go home, Jaci. For both our sakes, for my sanity, go home.”
1
Sometimes life just came full circle, whether a woman wanted it to or not. It was inevitable. And life had definitely come full circle for Jaci Wright.
The party was different. The stilted, gossipy political crowd was nothing like the raucous booze-laden crowd that had inhabited the last party where one of the Falladay twins had waylaid her.
She wasn’t a woman-child now. She was a mature woman with more hang-ups than a closet and just as many reasons for running as hard and as fast from them now as she’d had seven years ago.
But this time, she knew she wouldn’t run.
“It’s definitely a party your mother would approve of.” Chase Falladay stepped up to her. She had always been able to tell the Falladay brothers apart. Chase was dressed in an evening suit, his thick black hair brushed back from his strong features, his light green eyes watching her with a hint of laughter as a smile tugged at his sensual, sexy lips.
Sun-darkened flesh was stretched tighter over his face, it seemed, than it had been seven years ago. There were laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, but those eyes—such a light green they were mesmerizing—seemed more shadowed now. Haunted. And he still looked much too much like Cameron—the one man that haunted her dreams and her thoughts, even when he shouldn’t have.
“Yes, Mom would approve of this party,” she murmured, staring around for a second before her gaze was drawn back to him.
He was just as handsome as he ever had been. Just as bold as Cam and just as much out of her league. As she stared at him, she felt the past wash over her. The face that stared at her was the right one, but the man wasn’t.
“Fancy meeting you here.” She let a smile curve at her lips before raising her champagne glass and sipping at the sparkling liquid. She should have felt uncomfortable, hesitant, but she didn’t. She was more intrigued than she should be.
“Hmm. Providence perhaps?” He lifted a dark brow and leaned against the wall beside her, one hand pushing into the pockets of his dress slacks while the other held his champagne glass negligently. “Should I rescue you from this one, as Cam did the last one?”
The mention of that last party, the cool autumn night, the hot male body, and everything she had walked away from when she walked away from him and Cam, flashed through her. Heat whispered over her skin but it wasn’t embarassment.
“Courtney might kill us both,” she whispered as though they dare not let their hostess hear those words. “I had to promise her I’d mingle, under the threat of dire consequences.”
Courtney was her dearest friend. She, along with Sebastian De Lorents, had saved Jaci’s life on a dark street in England, years before, when a mugger decided to get ugly.
Courtney and Sebastian were both here now, in Squire Point, Virginia. Courtney had married an American businessman, and Sebastian was working for him. Just as Jaci would be doing soon.
“I’m sure Courtney would understand,” he offered suggestively. “And if she doesn’t, then I’ll have Ian explain it to her. He seems to have some small measure of control over her.”
There was a hint of laughter in his voice. Sexy, certain of himself. Confident.
“Chase Falladay.” She shook her head, still bemused to be standing there, talking to him as though the years had never separated them. “What are you doing here?”
He leaned forward several inches. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
He was close now. So close that all it would take was the smallest movement from her to touch him.
She shook her head, forcing herself to smile as she stared out over the crowd once more.
Fate was definitely being fickle at the moment. Not only were her two biggest headaches at this party, but also the identical twin of her greatest torment. Now, how was that for her life? She dreamed of Cam, but here was Chase. And perhaps, as he suggested, it was providence—a sign, Fate laughing its silly ass off and showing Jaci how fickle its favor could be.
“I don’t know,” she finally answered as she turned back to him. “I’ve been known to be pretty gullible at times. Tell me your tale, and then I’ll decide if I believe it.”
She liked to believe she was much less gullible than she had once been. She had seen the world; at times, she had seen more of it than she wanted to. And she had learned lessons she never imagined she would be faced with.
His eyes gleamed with laughter. “I wouldn’t want to make you blush. I hear it’s impolite.”
Sexy, charming. He was devilishly amusing, and the laughter was just as hard to contain as it had been seven years ago.
Chase had always been the joker, Cam the more serious one. Cam’s dark wit and almost dangerous sexuality had drawn women to him like flies to honey, just as it had drawn Jaci.
“As though that would stop you.” She had to force back the laughter, but it was hard. Chase had always had a way of making her laugh. “You delighted in it once. You made everyone laugh, while Cam made certain he made everyone angry.” She looked around again, her heart thumping hard in anticipation. “Where is Cam?”
Shockingly, she felt the remembered heat of that night so long ago. Cam’s kiss stealing her mind, and then later, his voice breaking her heart with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be her lover alone.
For so many years she had wondered if she had made a mistake in running from him that night. If she had stayed, so many things would have changed. And perhaps she wouldn’t have spent seven years wondering.
“Cam’s around.” His voice softened, the dark cadence gentling as she turned back to him. “He’ll enjoy seeing you again. It’s been a long time.”
It had been. It had been too long. And yet, not long enough. Because she still felt that warmth low in her stomach as it threatened to turn into a burn. A reaction only Cam, or the thought of Cam, could cause to build inside her.
And regret. There was always regret.
Bolder than brass, strong, muscled, larger than life. That was what Cam had always been to her. Until the night she realized exactly how bold he could be.
Chase had been her friend, though. Even later, during her odd visits home, he had been there. Flirtatious, yet knowing. He had teased her and laughed at her when they met up; but that spark, that hidden flame had never been the same with Chase.